First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Late Georgian England was a period of great social and political change, yet whether this was for good or for ill was by no means clear to many Britons. In such an era of innovation and revolution, Britons faced the task of deciding which ideals, goals and attitudes most closely fitted their own conception of the nation for which they struggled and fought; the controversies of the era thus forced ordinary people to define an identity that they believed embodied the ideal of 'Britishness' to which they could adhere in this period of uncertainty. Defining John Bull demonstrates that caricature played a vital role in this redefinition of what it meant to be British. During the reign of George III, the public's increasing interest in political controversies meant that satirists turned their attention to the individuals and issues involved. Since this long reign was marked by political crises, both foreign and domestic, caricaturists responded with an outpouring of work that led the era to be called the 'golden age' of caricature. Thus, many and varied prints, produced in response to public demands and sensitive to public attitudes, provide more than simply a record of what interested Britons during the late Georgian era. In the face of domestic and foreign challenges that threatened to shake the very foundations of existing social and political structures, the public struggled to identify those ideals, qualities and characteristics that seemed to form the basis of British society and culture, and that were the bedrock upon which the British polity rested. During the course of this debate, the iconography used to depict it in graphic satire changed to reflect shifts in or the redefinition of existing ideals. Thus, caricature produced during the reign of George III came to visually express new concepts of Britishness.

The late seventeenth and early eighteenth century was a period of great social and political change within Ireland, as the Protestant Ascendancy gained control of the country, aided by the English government and aristocracy, withwhom the ruling class in Ireland mixed through marriage and travel. The resulting Anglo-Irish elite, with its distinct transnational identity, differed markedly from the preceding Irish elite, but, at the same time, because of itsIrish dimension, was very different also from the contemporary English and Scottish upper classes. Women played key roles in this Anglo-Irish elite, and the nature of the Protestant Ascendancy can only be completely understood byconsidering women's roles fully. This book provides a thorough examination of the role of women in Ascendancy Ireland. It discusses marriage, family and social life; explores women's roles in economic and political life and in charitable activities; and places Irish elite women of this period in their wider historiographical context. The book is based on extensive original research, including among the papers of aristocratic families in Ireland and Britain, and provides a wealth of detail on elite women's lives in this period. Rachel Wilson completed her doctorate in modern history at Queen's University, Belfast.

For some time before his death in July 2015, former colleagues and students of Paul Langford had discussed the possibility of organising a festschrift to celebrate his remarkable contribution to eighteenth-century history. It was planned for 2019 to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the appearance of his seminal A Polite and Commercial People, the opening volume in the New Oxford History of England series, Paul's best-known and most influential publication. He was delighted to hear of these plans and the tragic news of his death only made the contributors more determined to see the project through to completion. The importance of A Polite and Commercial People within its own time is unquestionable. Not only did it provide a powerful new vision of eighteenth-century Britain, but it also played a vital part in reviving interest in, and expanding ways of thinking about, Georgian history. As the thirteen contributors to this volume amply testify, any review of the field from the 1980s onwards cannot ignore the profound effect Paul's research had on the social and political publications in his field. This collection of essays combines reflection on the impact of Paul's work with further engagement with the central questions he posed. In particular, it serves to re-connect various recent avenues of Georgian studies, bringing together diverse themes present in Paul's scholarship, but which are often studied independently of each other. As such, it aims to provide a fitting tribute to Paul's work and impact, and a wider reassessment of the current direction of eighteenth-century studies.

What does the love between British imperialists and their Asian male partners reveal about orientalism's social origins? To answer this question, Humberto Garcia focuses on westward-bound Central and South Asian travel writers who have long been forgotten or dismissed by scholars. This bias has obscured how Joseph Emin, Sake Dean Mahomet, Shaykh I'tesamuddin, Abu Talib Khan, Abul Hassan Khan, Yusuf Khan Kambalposh, and Lutfullah Khan found in their conviviality with Englishwomen and men a strategy for inhabiting a critical agency that appropriated various media to make Europe commensurate with Asia. Drama, dance, masquerades, visual art, museum exhibits, music, postal letters, and newsprint inspired these genteel men to recalibrate Persianate ways of behaving and knowing. Their cosmopolitanisms offer a unique window on an enchanted third space between empires in which Europe was peripheral to Islamic Indo-Eurasia. Encrypted in their mediated homosocial intimacies is a queer history of orientalist mimic men under the spell of a powerful Persian manhood.

A wide-ranging, thematic survey of women's history in Britain in the 18th and early 19th centuries, with chapters written by both well-established writers and new and dynamic scholars in a thorough and well-balanced selection.

How, and why, did the Anglo-American world become so obsessed with the private lives and public character of its political leaders? Marilyn Morris finds answers in eighteenth-century Britain, when a long tradition of court intrigue and gossip spread into a much broader and more public political arena with the growth of political parties, extra-parliamentary political activities, and a partisan print culture. The public’s preoccupation with the personal character of the ruling elite paralleled a growing interest in the interior lives of individuals in histories, novels, and the theater. Newspaper reports of the royal family intensified in intimacy and its members became moral exemplars—most often, paradoxically, when they misbehaved. Ad hominem attacks on political leaders became commonplace; politicians of all affiliations continued to assess one another’s characters based on their success and daring with women and money. And newly popular human-interest journalism promoted the illusion that the personal characters of public figures could be read by appearances.